So, as you probably noticed Chuck is tackling all of the touring and I’ll be working on the hotel and food posts…
Our first experience with Gate 1 Travel was our trip to Thailand a few years back and we found that the hotels and meals were very good. We were actually REALLY surprised when we checked in to our hotel in Beijing.
Our hotel was the Novotel Beijing Peace Hotel, it was centrally located to some small local stores and tea shop as well as a few blocks from the popular Wangfujing Market.
The hotel really blew us away, it was sleek and modern. As this trip is ‘technically’ celebrating Chuck’s birthday later this year he decided that he would ask about available upgrades whenever possible (and reasonable).
The hotel offered us an upgrade from our package room to a one bedroom suite for 1200 Yuan or about $62.50 per night for the three nights…so we took it.
The room was big with a completely separate office / sitting room and a bedroom with a queen size bed. It was great because I’ve been waking up really early and was ale to go into the other room and close the door to watch tv or catch up on social media.
Chinese beds are notoriously hard and this was no exception but after sleeping sitting up on a plane it was perfect. The only draw back to the room was lack of light. It just wansn’t very bright and while the sun came up at 4:44 am there wasn’t a ton of natural light.
The hotel was really beautiful with a large sitting area in the lobby and we’re findin that Chinese hotels love their silk flowers and seen to use a much better quality or arranging than we see in the states.
The included breakfast buffet was HUGE, it had both Chinese and western options. You could have a waffle, pancake, eggs, bacon, sausage or an omelet and they always had toast, pastry, yogurt and fruit available as well.
We have a philosophy that we only eat local foods when we travel, occasionally we’ll sneak in some bacon.
Breakfast this morning included steamed pork buns, fried rice, roasted cauliflower (BTW, Chinese cauliflower is AMAZING), and stir fried rape seed.
Other breakfasts at this hotel included soup with dumplings, steamed pumpkin and stir fried vegetables.
Over all the hotel, the service and the food was pretty awesome…
